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Someone I know was recently collecting money to buy masks for a distressed hospital directly from a factory in China. When asked why the hospital doesn’t just b

Someone I know was recently collecting money to buy masks for a distressed hospital directly from a factory in China. When asked why the hospital doesn’t just buy the masks themselves, they said this: “They absolutely should. But hospitals don’t buy from individual factories in China, they buy supplies from catalogues from approved vendors. In the meantime, we can help protect the workers with a short-term donation. Also from what I hear, China has been slowing down “official” export of medical supplies. What I’m doing is placing a private order via DHL that should go through faster.” If it’s true, this could help explain how PG’s donation would create an incremental benefit rather than just increasing the demand/prices on the limited supply.

pg 7y ago
Yes. The root of the problem is that the hospitals' supply chain is brittle, and broke under the stress. One hopes it will get redesigned to be more robust. But in the meantime Flexport can get PPE now, and now is when it's needed.
jimhi 7y ago
I've been shipping hundreds of thousands of masks to different institutions from China for the last 6 weeks - Universities, Government Agencies, Postal Companies, etc through my company ZipX. Supply is a factor - the prices are ridiculous - but not the biggest limiting factor The two main issues are 1. How do you trust the factory? Unless you have worked with or vetted a factory for awhile how do you know the masks are actually rated at the level they say or that they will even deliver once they get the money? So so many websites and factories can supposedly sell you millions of cheap BFE 99% or N95 masks yet did not even exist 2 weeks ago. Certificates can be photoshopped. Most of the countries that manufacture these days have no legal recourse if they scam you. We have local offices in all the countries we import from, did multiple visits in person, tested out larger and larger sample orders and they still tried to scam us by switching out the masks for used ones 3 weeks in. 2. How you do you deliver it? The customs laws are changing all the time. Unless you have contacts there to check the current status you may have information that's a week out of date. India just banned the export of masks a few days ago. The Shanghai gateway blocks 3-ply masks to Hong Kong but the Shenzhen gateway doesn't. Also flight space is extremely limited. You have to have dedicated space booked or a contact for large space like these supplies need. Your average person isn't going to get 1,000,000 of anything on a cargo plane within a week. Flexport has been around long enough and has local offices and contacts to deal with these.

pg 7y ago

Yes. The root of the problem is that the hospitals' supply chain is brittle, and broke under the stress. One hopes it will get redesigned to be more robust. But in the meantime Flexport can get PPE now, and now is when it's needed.

jimhi 7y ago

I've been shipping hundreds of thousands of masks to different institutions from China for the last 6 weeks - Universities, Government Agencies, Postal Companies, etc through my company ZipX. Supply is a factor - the prices are ridiculous - but not the biggest limiting factor The two main issues are 1. How do you trust the factory? Unless you have worked with or vetted a factory for awhile how do you know the masks are actually rated at the level they say or that they will even deliver once they get the money? So so many websites and factories can supposedly sell you millions of cheap BFE 99% or N95 masks yet did not even exist 2 weeks ago. Certificates can be photoshopped. Most of the countries that manufacture these days have no legal recourse if they scam you. We have local offices in all the countries we import from, did multiple visits in person, tested out larger and larger sample orders and they still tried to scam us by switching out the masks for used ones 3 weeks in. 2. How you do you deliver it? The customs laws are changing all the time. Unless you have contacts there to check the current status you may have information that's a week out of date. India just banned the export of masks a few days ago. The Shanghai gateway blocks 3-ply masks to Hong Kong but the Shenzhen gateway doesn't. Also flight space is extremely limited. You have to have dedicated space booked or a contact for large space like these supplies need. Your average person isn't going to get 1,000,000 of anything on a cargo plane within a week. Flexport has been around long enough and has local offices and contacts to deal with these.